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Friday, January 22, 2010

100 Records That Shook The World, #86

Please Please Please

James Brown

Soul Brother Number One, Mr. Dynamite, Minister of The New New Super Heavy Funk,The Hardest Working Man in Show Business, The Amazing Mr. Please Please Himself...

From the King of Rock 'n' roll to the Godfather of Soul. James Brown was a pivotal force in music. A profilic songwriter, singer, bandleader and dancer, he began his music career in 1955 when he was performing in a band known as The Gospel Starlighters, along with Sarah, the sister of Bobby Byrd. Brown joined Byrd's group The Avons and the musical direction changed from gospel to secular R&B. The group's name was changed to The Flames and began touring the Southern chitlin' circuit, when they were signed by Cincinnati's Federal Records. Their first release was Please Please Please, with the label crediting James Brown with The Famous Flames.

Even though it did not sell well to mainstream audiences, it peaked at number 6 on the R&B chart, and eventually went on to sell well over a million copies. It became his signature song in his live shows, and part of the cape routine, whereby Brown, feigning exhaustion, would get on his knees while singing the refrain "please, please, please" into the mike. The MC would come on and drape a cape over Brown's shoulders and escort him off stage while the backup singers kept crooning, "Baby please don't go-oh." Brown would then return, sing the refrain some more, collapse again, be draped with a different cape, get escorted off again, and the whole thing would continue, sometimes as many as six or seven times. It can be seen in the closing credits of the 1998 film, Blues Brothers 2000. The Alan Parker film The Commitments features the would-be Dublin soul musicians watching the act on video for inspiration.

On Rolling Stone's All-Time Top 500, Please Please Please ranks at #142. If it hadn't been for JB, we would never have had soul, funk, or hip-hop. Think about that, and digest, while listening to Soul Brother Number One, Mr. Superbad, James Brown and The Famous Flames....